Arthritis-Busting Clothespin is Ingenious and Complex

You know when you first wake up in the morning and you’re as weak as a kitten? You try to pick up something small and heavy, but you just can’t grip it. Imagine being like that all the time, only with added pain. That’s arthritis.

Arthritis makes everyday tasks a chore, and we have featured several helpful widgets designed to make life easier for those with gnarled knuckles. This redesigned clothespin, designed by a gentleman only known as Product Tank, wins for being both the most mechanically fascinating, and because it adds many layers of complexity to what is one of the simplest products you can buy.

The peg combines levers, weak springs and a clever rubber-ratcheting jaw to make it both easy to squeeze open and secure in its grip. Squeezing it, like you’d squeeze a hand-grenade before throwing, opens the jaws and lets you slip it over the damp clothes and washing-line. When you let go, the ratchet drops over the front handle and keeps it in place, and the spring pushes it forward as far as it will go.

If the pin slips then the rubber grip will push the clamp further closed. But no matter how tight it gets, a light squeeze on the rear handle will pop it open and relieve the pressure. It sure is ingenious but, like I said, it is also way more complex. Then again, even tripling the price of a pack of clothespins is still cheap.

Product Tank tried out an array of prototypes on his arthritic neighbor Shirley before arriving at this final design. Here’s hoping that this one makes it out of Shirley’s back yard and into stores. Video below (skip to two minutes in).